Blinder is a moron of the highest order. At some point adding debt to keep the gravy train in perpetual motion starts having negative return. Eliminating the risk of a quite death while ensuring a slow demise.
Anyone remember the short story "Survivor Type"? Here's the Wiki summary:
Survivor Type" is written as the diary of a disgraced surgeon, Richard Pine (real name Richard Pinzetti), who, while attempting to smuggle a large amount of heroin on a cruise ship, finds himself marooned on a tiny island in the Pacific with very limited supplies and no food. A self-proclaimed "survivor" type, his diary entries documenting his day to day activities become more and more disjointed and raving (similar to the writing technique used in Flowers for Algernon), revealing his slow mental decay and eventual insanity caused by starvation, isolation, and drug use. Determined to hold out for rescue, he goes to horrifying lengths to survive. After breaking his ankle while attempting to hunt a bird, he amputates his foot, then realizes he has to eat it to survive. He continues to amputate his own limbs to use as a food source, ingesting the heroin for anesthesia during the operations. His last few diary entries, barely comprehensible, indicate he has cut off and eaten everything below his waist, as well as his ears, and drools uncontrollably as he ponders which body part to consume next. The diary entries end when he cuts off his left hand to eat. ("lady fingers they taste like lady fingers").
Disturbing, even by Steven King standards. But endless bailouts are starting to look a lot like self cannibalism to me. Granted, the 1936 downturn followed Rooselvelt tightening up fiscal policy. But Blinder misinterprets fiscal stimulus as a cure, not bridging therapy.
An epinephine drip may keep a patient alive who is on death's door, but I'm spinning my wheels if I do nothing to correct the underlying disorder. The government has been tripping over its self to avoid dealing with systemic problems in our financial system that might help get ourselves back in order, preferring instead to wallpaper it over with mountains of money. The answer to a deleveraging depression is not endless debt.